In the dream, there was a man I haven't met before.
He was tall, lean, a little pale, had this big, bright eyes, and his hair was short. He seemed bright, both literally and figuratively, and it helped that he was always smiling. His eyes smiled, too, and I thought he looked wonderful.
In the dream, my father and I were in the car, traveling somewhere. Where exactly, I couldn't really say. Somehow, as we drove on, we couldn't remember where we were supposed to go, but my father insisted he knew. I doubted it, but I let him drive on. It didn't take long for us to get lost.
We ended up along a deserted, long, winding road. There were so many trees that lined up the highway, and no cars seemed to pass by. When we decided to just turn back, the car refused to rev up, and we knew we were stranded.
Our phones seemed to think it was the perfect time to either die or lose reception, and I honestly thought we were going to die. I was feeling helpless, until we heard a loud crunching sound from our right, just along the trees, and found a young man emerging from the woodland.
"Need help?" His voice sounded so real that when I woke up, I thought everything that happened was real, too.
He ended up helping my father fix the car -- he went back to where he came from inside the woods (he said there was a community inside) to get his tools. It turned out that he was pretty skilled and they got the car working in no time.
It was very uncharacteristic of my father, but he invited the young man to our home. The young man happily took the offer, and we drove home with him. Along the way, we found out that his family owned a restaurant inside the woodlands, seriously out of the way.
He was really kind and charming, and everyone at home loved him even when he was essentially a stranger. At some point, we became close friends, and I immediately realized that he was very dependable. There was a point in the dream where I was crying so hard -- but I couldn't remember exactly why. I just kept saying, "I am so tired, I don't want this anymore!" so many times, that I couldn't recall what prompted me to say that in the first place.
I called him from my phone to complain and cry, and he answered, "I'll be there."
And he didn't disappoint. In the dream, he got to me when I cried. He embraced me really tight, and he let me hug him, too. He kissed the top of my head and I could have sworn I felt the warmth seep to my skin. It was so real, and it was not.
"Do you want to visit our restaurant?" he asked a few moments later. He said something along the lines of traveling might cheer me up. So I joined him. He was really excited that I was visiting their place.
He toured me around his aunt's barbecue restaurant. It was a very refreshing, tropical setup, and it was relatively quite. Because it was out of the way, there were very few people dining in. I commented about this, and he said they preferred that few people know about their restaurant.
He pulled me toward the backyard, and it was tropical heaven. So many fruit trees lined up, including oranges and mangoes. He asked what fruit my family liked and I said mangoes. He grinned so mischievously as he pulled me toward one of the bigger mango trees.
There was someone on one of the thick branches, an old man, to whom he called out. He asked for the man to give me mangoes.
The old man laughed and told him he was showing off, to which he just mischievously shrugged his shoulders. The old man reached out to a nearby fruit, pulled it, and dropped it to us. The young man readily caught the fruit -- and the rest that followed.
He piled them all up in a basket and gave me the fruits. He told me it was for me, and for my father, and my mother, and everyone I loved. I took the basket, searched around in it, and found that almost all the mangoes were ripe. I gave him one as thank you, and he laughed.
Then I woke up.
Dream Journal from August 29, 2021.
